


Can't Take the Sky (For Long)

by Nevcolleil



Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: He appeared on the ship while it was “in the black”, which Sam takes to mean “really far away from everything.”
Relationships: Hoban "Wash" Washburne/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 3





	Can't Take the Sky (For Long)

No one gets hit over the head by a murderous angel and expects to wake up several centuries into the future.

Sam thinks he can be forgiven for reacting badly to the shock.

“They’ll come around, you’ll see. Once the swelling goes down… and they forget about that whole you-tried-to-kill-me thing.”

Wash is the only one who tries to talk to him. Which is funny, because Wash really bore the brunt of Sam’s reacting badly.

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

The Captain - Mal, Wash calls him - still sounds out a warning before he walks into the passenger quarters where Sam is kept. He brings Sam food. Occasionally he repeats questions Sam has never been able to answer believably (because the truth is simply unbelievable.) Sometimes he just stares.

Jayne - the big one - and Zoe - the scary one - “escort” Sam to the cargo bay when they need him to unload the mule or help store cargo. This means that Jayne pushes Sam around and pokes him in the back with a large rifle, which he seems entirely too fond of. Zoe watches over them, communicating with Jayne entirely through minute, almost indistinguishable, changes in facial expression. Zoe has never spoken in Sam’s presence.

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” Wash says cheerfully. “Jayne looks to be a gambling man and he strikes me as the sore loser type.”

Wash is sitting, Indian-legged, with his back to the wall of the corridor outside of Sam’s room. The door is open and Sam leans against the doorjam. Zoe is watching again, from the far end of the corridor. The Captain discourages Wash from going into Sam’s room with him, alone. In the beginning he forbid it, but Wash kept coming to see Sam all the same, so Mal threw up his hands and said something fierce in Chinese - which apparently gave Wash permission to interact with the big, bad stowaway if he wished, so long as Zoe stood near meanwhile.

Wash is wearing a bright orange shirt with blue hibiscus blooms all over it. His mustache moves as he talks, tugging at the corners of Sam’s mouth when Wash gets really into whatever he’s saying, which is often.

If it weren’t for Wash, Sam would never stop thinking about Dean and Cas. About his parents. About what happened with Anna and Uriel after a flash of blinding light brought him here, cut off from Lucifer and the Apocalypse and the demon blood- But also from his family, from his future (ironically enough).

“Okay. So what’s the deal with the peach?” Sam shakes his thoughts away and gestures at the strange, round cards spread out on the floor in front of Wash, between the two of them. This is, Sam thinks, the “modern” day equivalent of Texas Hold ‘Em. Or maybe Go Fish.

“It’s simple. This card…”

There are five crew members of the Firefly class starship Serenity. The Captain, Mal, and his first officer, Zoe, seem to have the most history together. At least, they seem to be the most comfortable in one another’s presence. Mal is the only one who doesn’t tense up when Zoe enters a room, and seems perfectly comfortable with her standing, armed, at his back. Jayne, Wash, and the engineer - Sam hasn’t met her - each came aboard not long before Sam arrived.

Wash says Jayne was here when Mal hired him on as pilot. Kaylee was the last to sign on. Wash talks about Jayne in a hushed voice and short sentences, as if he’s afraid the big man will come around a corner at any moment and kill him for gossiping. Sam can’t say he blames Wash. It’s obvious what Jayne’s job is on the ship, and Sam would guess that Jayne is awfully good at doing it.

Kaylee is rarely talked about at all. Wash throws nervous glances at Zoe whenever Sam asks questions, so Sam’s figured out that Wash has been told to protect her from the big bad stowaway as well. Sometimes this frustrates Sam. He knows that these people have no reason to trust him. To be honest? They probably shouldn’t trust him. If he had some place to go, some way to get home, he would take it - no matter how. But he doesn’t, so he can’t, and even if he could, Sam’s hardly the type to hurt a woman. Who isn’t possessed by a demon, anyway.

He isn’t sure how long he can take the lock and key routine. Or how long he’ll have to. He appeared on the ship while it was “in the black”, which Sam takes to mean “really far away from everything.” Presumably, he hasn’t been booted off the ship yet because there hasn’t been anywhere to boot him. Sam knows that the others didn’t just shoot him as soon as they found him because Wash pleaded his case. Wash tells Sam that he and Kaylee continue to do so, and Sam would really like to meet Kaylee and thank her for that. He’d like to think Wash, for that matter, but he doesn’t know how. Sam doesn’t even know why Wash gives him the time of day.

He kicks the problem around in his head. He has nothing to give Wash; he can’t leave his quarters without an armed escort, so it’s not like Sam can offer to do Wash’s ship’s duties for him. Most of those are on the bridge, anyways, and Sam’s pretty sure Mal will shoot him - Wash and Kaylee or no Wash and Kaylee - if Sam even mentions wanting to go up there.

In the end, all Sam has are words. So when Wash rises to call it a night one evening, Sam stops him before he can walk away.

“Just- Thank you, Wash. Really. Thanks.”

Wash doesn’t say anything at first, but he turns very pink beneath that god-awful mustache. It’s adorable.

“I- Yeah. Yeah, no problem.” Sam’s pretty sure Wash knows they aren’t just talking about the games Wash teaches Sam to play.

“I mean… I don’t know why you do it. But thanks.” Sam is unreasonably nervous bringing it up. He’s seen Wash shove chopsticks beneath his teeth and pretend to be some distant offspring of the walrus - he hardly has to watch his words with the other man.

Sam expects Wash to shrug off the comment, maybe with a joke to break the sudden tension, or something - but instead Wash gets this expression on his face. He looks like he’s considering what Sam said seriously, maybe for the first time.

“To be honest, I don’t know either,” he says. “Just feels like the right thing to do. Know what I mean?”

“Even after what I did to you?” Sam feels worse about that now than ever. It was reflex. His eyes hadn’t even been open when his fist had first connected with Wash’s face. But that doesn’t help much - neither does seeing Wash’s bruises every day, which are still visible, a purpling ‘Look what you did!’ spread out over Wash’s left cheek, curved around the side of Wash’s throat in the shape of Sam’s fingers

“Ah, I told you, don’t worry about that. You hit like a girl,” Wash teases, backwards-walking away. “And I say that as a friend who is standing too far away for you to hit him again. Plus, Zoe would save me if you tried anyway. Wouldn’t you, Zoe?”

“Not likely.”

Sam grins. Zoe has spoken.

Wash is grinning also. “Don’t listen to her. She loves me, this woman.”

“You aren’t standing too far away for me to hit, Washburn.”

“Right. That’s my cue to take my leave. G’night, Sam!”

“Goodnight, Wash.”

Sam is still chuckling when he turns back into his quarters and closes the door behind him. Only to open it up again a moment later when there is a knock on its frame instead of the sound of Zoe turning a lock.

Sam’s mouth sticks, partially open on a question, when he sees Zoe standing in front of him. He has to make himself snap it back shut. Zoe’s going to speak to him twice in one day? Sam’s been on Serenity for over two weeks. Something’s changed.

“The next time you hurt that man,” Zoe says, without preamble. “I don’t care if you’re ill or sleep-walking or doped to your teeth. I will remove your fingers, do you understand me?” she asks.

Sam doesn’t have to have heard Zoe speak before now to know that a threat is sincere when it’s said with her voice. He swallows. Tries to smile.

“Right. I got it.”

Zoe studies him for a moment. Then she nods and walks away.

A week later, Sam is woken from sleep by screaming sirens. Alarms are going off all over the ship. The darkness of Sam’s quarters is replaced by the dull, red glow from the emergency lights that line the top of each corridor, the corner of each room.

Sam doesn’t have time to worry about what it means. He begins throwing on the spare change of clothes Wash talked Jayne into lending him. The shirt and pants are too large, but besides the ones that Sam was wearing when he showed up here, they are the only ones on the ship long enough to accommodate Sam’s long arms and legs. He uses a length of cord for a belt and cuffs the shirt sleeves; when he needs to, he washes his clothes in the sink in his quarters with the soap powder Wash gave him. By the time Sam is dressed there are boots clanging down the stairs into the passenger area.

The clanging drowns out some of the words, but Sam can make out the others.

“-flying the gorramed ship.”

“I told Jayne to come dow- -ouldn’t do it! We can’t- -eave him to d- -will kill him if they brea- -arters, Captain!”

The clanging stops. Sam can hear Mal and Wash in the corridor. Zoe might be with them, she might not. She moves without sound. Sam glues his eyes to the door and positions himself in the shadows, dropping into a crouched position. He doesn’t know what’s going on. But he doesn’t have to hear an entire conversation to know that the words “Jayne” and “kill”, spoken by two men running for his quarters, are a bad sign. Even if one of those men is Wash.

“If they breach the hull, they’ll kill us all, Wash. Least if‘n we‘re lucky. We don’t have our hands full worryin’ about that without babysittin’ some freeloader in the midst of things?”

“He’s hardly a freeloader, Mal. He’s been a big help to Zoe and Jayne. You said yourself we couldn’t have cleared out from our last job before the scouts showed up if Sam hadn’t been in the cargo bay helping move salvage while you and Jayne brought it in.”

“Wash-”

“And the only reason he’s not already out there helping Jayne lock us down is you’re all still so gorramed paranoid about him-”

“Gwai gwai long de dong! Wash! That hun dan tried to break your gorramed neck-”

“And he apologized!”

Having moved closer to the door, Sam isn’t sure whether Mal and Wash have paused to catch their breaths, or if Mal’s been irritated silent for the moment, but he has an opportunity to speak so he takes it.

“Seeing as the two of you seem to be arguing about me,” Sam calls out through the door, “Do you think maybe you could tell me why you’re arguing?”

There is no response for a moment. And then the sound of boots begins again, coming closer.

“Mal-”

“Bizui.”

Sam steps back. A second later the lock turns and his door flies open.

As always, the Captain has his pistol drawn. Sam is still on edge - still half wary that that pistol is meant for him. But he gets the gist of what Wash and Mal were talking about, and for once Wash is armed as well. An ill-fitting holster is slung across his hips. There are no bright colors or alarming floral patterns today; no neon dinosaurs. Wash is wearing a pair of dark, gray overalls with the top pulled down and tied around his waist, a white wife-beater covering his chest. His pants’ legs and arms are spotted with engine grease. His eyes are as wide as Sam’s ever seen them.

Sam has a flash of memory - a glimpse of Wash’s face from that first day - before it hit the wall when Sam attacked - but that brief look of fear was nothing compared to the certain terror that is hiding not far behind Wash’s eyes now.

Even worse. There’s fear in Mal’s face too. Quieter. Tightly restrained, like Mal’s seen too many things to be terrified of to give any one any real attention now, but it’s there. The lines of his face are harsh and tight.

“Seems we’ve got us some would-be visitors coming up on us fast,” Mal begins to explain. “My pilot is averse to leaving you here by yourself while we run for our lives, lest they get on board and find you. I am not averse, however, to chucking you out the first air lock if you give me so much as a hint of trouble, dong ma?”

Sam’s worked out that those words mean the equivalent of: ‘Understand?’ He nods.

“We’re moving you up to the bridge where you’ll be cuffed to the nearest secure surface-” Mal takes a moment to glare at Wash, who is squirming as if wrestling the urge to object. Wash stills. He doesn’t look at Sam. “You’ll be cuffed on the bridge so I don’t have to worry about you on top of worryin’ about not getting raped and eaten by the gorramed Reavers. I repeat, if you give me one reason, I will end you.”

Sam has no idea what’s going on, but he doubts playing 20 questions at this juncture would do much to ensure his continued health. He nods again. He really only has one question, anyway.

As they head out of his quarters, he asks, “What are Reavers?”

Mal and Wash both look at him like he’s lost his mind.


End file.
